Waiting
by Amber6
Summary: Alternate ending to 'Once Upon A time' based years after from Piper's point of view


bcenteruWaiting/b/center/u  
  
centerNatz333@aol.com/center  
  
  
Sometimes in this life, we'll all say that we always seem to be waiting for something to happen. But in truth, we're always waiting. Maybe it's a planned event, whether in days or mere seconds. Maybe we know something is coming, but have no idea when. But we're still waiting. Waiting for that alarm to go off. Waiting for that clock to tick to noon. Waiting for a a miracle, sometimes. For something so far away from the present situation that it seems as if it will never come. And often, it won't.  
  
Wake up in the morning. You're already planning for that job interview, that coffee meeting, that date tonight. Waiting for each event to take place. But at the same time, we're waiting for the bigger things, too. Things that will determine more significant changes than whether it'll be a mocha or an expresso. Waiting for that one person to sweep us off our feet. Waiting for that day we've dreamt of since childhood. Waiting for a bigger reality, a bigger life.   
  
Yes, we're waiting. Waiting for a million things at once. For the toast to pop up, for the water to boil. For the chance to say your carefully planned speech to your prospective new employees, or to finally speak the wedding vows you've practised and modified since you were three. Sometimes, the waiting lasts years. Sometimes only seconds. And for some, it'll last forever.  
  
If your husband turns up late for a date, how long do you wait? Half an hour? An hour? If he goes away, you await his return. What if you didn't know how long he would be gone for? What if his return wasn't in a week, or two, but perhaps infinite eternity's and light years away? Would you live each day, waiting for a time you didn't know would even ever come?  
  
But we wait for those who love us. Because we love them back. For most it's a couple of weeks, a predetermined date with a thousand phonecalls in between and the prospect of knowing he's coming home in three days, two days, today. And we still go about the life with the house and two car garage, three kids and washing to be hung out. Two weeks and the waiting is over, however. That's the fundamental difference between myself and every other wife with a travelling husband.  
  
I waited for years. I'm still waiting. Waiting for a miracle, for you to saunter back in through the door and comment on how little the street had changed. Your eyes would meet mine from across the sun licked hall, that piercing, rich green I'd held in my head for years now. The shadows would turn on the walls and we'd walk slowly towards each other, and you'd hug me like never before. That hug I'd wanted for so long, that the days and years had dissolved into one huge mass of missing, loving, mourning and waiting.  
  
But I gave up on that dream years ago. When they sent you away, we thought it'd be for a little while. But we thought you'd come back. We never doubted it. I didn't even kiss you goodbye properly; I simply stared as you dissolved into the nothingness you have come to exist as. I wish I could cling on to that dream of years ago. I wish that it would resurface every so often and I could believe you were coming back. But what's the point. They'll never let you.  
  
So I'll go about this life. The old Jeep's still parked outside, the same photos hang from the walls. Our continuous battle against evil goes on, and we still win. We've come to be three again, living as though you never existed. It hurts too much to talk about you and what happened, and they've learnt not to ask.  
  
But I'll keep waiting. Not waiting, anymore, for you to walk through the door. Waiting for the day I come to heaven, maybe. Then maybe they'll let us see each other once more. Maybe I'd feel your arms around me and my skin tingle from your touch.  
  
There are so many years between then and now. But I'll stay here, because it's what you would have wanted. I'll wait, because I love you too much to ever let go of that shimmer of hope, that still glints from the end of the long, long tunnel. Maybe, one day, you'll come home. To me, to what we had. But maybe we just broke too many rules. Maybe they'll never let us be together. Maybe I'll never know.  
  
But I'll keep waiting.  
  
  
  
Fin.  



End file.
